Robin Jarvis-Jax 01 Dancing Jax (23 page)

Waiting for them at the entrance to the old bunker were the two Harlequin Priests, wearing for the first time their new robes made from diamond patches of different colours. Both of them held an iron poker in one hand and they bowed in silence as the first of the women drew near.

The area around the pillbox had been cleared of gorse and the wire fencing had been completely removed. Hundreds of candles were shining inside and the young woman who had once been Shiela Doyle was standing in the entrance, her arms open in wide welcome.

The High Priestess Labella was dressed in a long white and purple gown. Golden wire was twined in her hair and a tear-shaped piece of amethyst winked on her brow, reflecting the candle flames.

“Greetings, sisters,” she announced as the women and girls gathered before her. “The Holy Enchanter awaits you within the Court. Cross the divide and enter in.”

The women filed past, to descend the stairs and walk the length of the tunnel beneath. Most were already wearing playing cards pinned to their nightdresses, but some were not and so Labella provided them with one each, according to which Royal House, or which quarter of the White Castle, they now belonged.

“Otherwise Mauger will not let you pass,” she told them. “He guards the way and is fiercely vigilant, but show him these and you will be permitted to go by.”

The last two figures were a woman in her late thirties and a pale teenage girl swaddled in a dressing gown. Labella attached a card to their nightclothes and bade them enter.

With their glassy eyes sparkling in the candle glow, Sandra Dixon and her mother descended the stairs eagerly.

The High Priestess gazed out across the road – to where the larger concrete walled area was still hidden by gorse. The golden illumination of many lanterns was lighting the thickets and their needle-like leaves. A drum began to beat, a lute played and the sound of merriment commenced.

“The Queen of Hearts has made such a quantity of minchet,” the High Priestess murmured with an indulgent smile. “There is enough for all yonder. Take as many jars as you need, ladies. When you return to your hearths and homes, deal it out freely. In the name of the Dawn Prince and his Holy Enchanter, the Ismus Resplendent!”

The Harlequin Priests took her hands reverently. Together, they descended into the tunnel and made their way to the Court. Music and wild laughter drifted up from the spacious, high-walled bunker. It floated out, over the shore, and mingled with the noise of the surf on the shingle.

Chapter 22

I
n dances Magpie Jack, so hide what he may lack. In his palm there is an itch and the spell he cannot crack. Jools and trinkets he will thieve, the witch’s curse to relieve. Conceal your rich things from his itchings – for you’ll never get them back.

B
ARRY
M
ILLIGAN STARED
out of the staffroom window the following morning, watching the first of the kids arrive through the gates. Martin Baxter was standing beside him. None of the other teachers had turned up yet so they had the room, and the kettle, to themselves. They were discussing Paul’s recent bad behaviour.

“And he refuses to go have a chat with happy-clappy Clucas?” the Head was saying.

“He’s headstrong as his mother sometimes,” Martin replied. “Says it’s totally pointless because there’s nothing wrong with him.”

“Cocky beggar,” Barry grunted. “But we can’t have him going AWOL every time there’s something he doesn’t want to do. If every kid did that, there’d only be us staff here, stood about like lemons.”

“We can’t get through to him. He’s going round to see a friend of ours this evening. Maybe Gerald will succeed where we can’t. We just don’t know what’s come over him. He’s such a good kid really. You know that.”

The Headteacher didn’t appear to be listening. He was staring abstractedly though the window.

“You all right?” Martin asked after a long pause.

Barry stirred and looked at him. The familiar steely glint of the hard-nosed TV detective was gone.

“I spoke to the governors again last night,” he said. “Or rather they spoke to me.”

Martin blinked in surprise. “Oh?” he said.

“I won’t be here on Monday,” the Head told him in a low voice. “They want me out, soon as.”

“They can’t do that!”

“They can apparently. I brought the name of the school and the whole teaching profession into disrepute so they can do what they like with me. I just didn’t think it’d be this soon. They’ve already got the replacement lined up and she starts next week so I’m done here.”

Martin didn’t know what to say. “That’s terrible,” he mumbled. “What will you do?”

“I won’t get another job in education, that’s for sure. But you know what, I’m almost relieved. I’m pig sick of it. The government won’t let us do the job properly. They’ve made the exams easier, just so it looks like their meddling initiatives work when more kids than ever before are passing them. It’s a joke, Martin, an absolute joke, and I’m tired of being stuck in the middle of it.”

“I’m sorry,” Martin said. “Will you manage? Will you be all right?”

“Not thinking beyond this weekend at the moment. I’ll see those dead kids buried and pay my last respects before I even think about what to do next.”

“That’s going to be a tough day.”

“A triple hankie job, I reckon.”

“Yes,” Martin agreed. “Barry, you’ll be missed, you know.” The Head coughed and sniffed loudly. “Just keep my leaving under your bionic lid, old son,” he said. “I don’t want the likes of Douggy Wynn gloating. No fuss, no cards and no bunny girl jumping out of a cake. Tell no one. Let’s give them all a big surprise next Monday morning.”

“If you’re sure?”

“Oh, I am.”

“And you’re certain you’ll be OK?”

“Saturday afternoon I will be. I’m going to be worshipping at the ground. I’ve still got my rugby – they can’t take that away. I’ll have my team’s shirt on, paint my face in their colours and be in heaven.”

Martin smiled. “And you think my obsession is strange,” he said.

“Dressing up as Mr Spock? Yep, that’s weird, Martin.”

“I’ve never worn the ears! Ever!”

“Oh, but you would, I bet.”

“I’m allergic to the glue,” Martin confessed with a laugh. “You should see the lengths some people go to at these conventions. The costumes and make-up are amazing.”

“Nah, that’s just sad, isn’t it?”

“You’d be stunned, they go to so much effort. Must cost them a fortune.”

“So where’d they get all the gear from?”

“Some make it themselves. Others get it off the Internet or commission people to make it for them. It’s incredible, better than the real thing sometimes.”

Barry shrugged and stared back through the window. “We all escape this cruddy world somehow, Martin,” he said. “Hello – what did that lot sprinkle on their cornflakes this morning?”

He was looking at a group of children processing through the gates. They seemed to be performing a formal kind of medieval dance. Parading along the path in pairs, they halted, pointed a toe, then turned and bowed to their partner. Then they swapped sides and repeated it.

“Look at those wallies,” Barry muttered. “What do they think they look like? You know, Monday can’t come quick enough.”

Each of those children was wearing a playing card, but the two men observed that they had also done something else to their blazers. The sleeves were hanging empty at their sides and their arms were poking through beneath them.

“What’s going on there?” Barry asked.

Martin frowned for a moment. Then he understood.

“They’ve cut through the stitching under the arms!” he exclaimed. “What the hell?”

“It’s that ruddy book,” Barry said. “The one Graeme Parker and Anthony Maskel got expelled over. That’s what the drawings in it looked like. The sleeves were hanging down just like that. Oh, incidentally, Mrs Early rang me last night to say she’s coming back today. She’s not going to let what happened keep her off any longer. Good for her.”

“Dancing Jacks,” Martin said. “What is it about that stupid book? Did you read it, Barry?”

“Didn’t make any sense to me,” the Head replied with a puzzled frown. “The bit I read was about some character called a Jockey – but he didn’t even have a horse. Didn’t look like there was any rugby in it either. Not my cup of PG that kind of thing.”

“It’s strange how it’s taken hold here,” Martin murmured as he reflected over the past few days. “That’s when Paul first started acting nuts. He said the book was dangerous and, before that, Shiela Doyle tried to warn me about it…”

“Phases and crazes,” Barry said. “They come and go. I never understand what sparks off the latest daft fad. The only thing I know is that they never last. Their parents aren’t going to be happy when they see what the kids have done to their blazers. They’ll be bang to rights.”

“We can’t let them get away with it, can we? We can’t let them go about like that with the sleeves flapping and their arms shoved through the armpits.”

Barry laughed. “Why not? Like I said yesterday, let the kids do what they want this week. Technically they’re still in uniform. They’ll be brought down to earth with a bump when the new Head starts if she’s any good, which I sincerely doubt. Let the flappy sleeves be her headache. Looks armless enough to me.”

“Oww!” Martin groaned. Barry snickered.

“You’re a wicked old prop forward,” Martin told him.

“Old, clapped-out and on the scrap heap of life,” Barry agreed.

Another member of staff came into the room, quickly followed by a couple more. The school day was beginning.

Martin’s first lesson was with Year 10. He sat at his desk, experiencing the usual sinking feeling that took hold before every double period with this horrible lot. The children came into the room quietly for a change and sat down and settled faster than usual.

Martin looked at them. Twenty-two out of twenty-seven were sporting a playing card on their uniform and most of those children had modified their blazers so that the sleeves were dangling uselessly from their shoulders. Every one of those pupils wore a remote expression as though they were half asleep in a wonderful dream. Sandra Dixon had come into school that day. She looked paler than ever and could hardly keep her eyes open.

“Morning, rabble.” The maths teacher addressed them in his usual bantering tone.

“Good morning, Sir!” the card-wearers answered politely, while their classmates said nothing, but regarded them with suspicion.

Martin noticed with astonishment that Conor Westlake was also wearing a card, the Jack of Clubs. Surely Conor hadn’t read a book? The boy was another of the empty-sleeve brigade. Martin really didn’t understand what was going on with the kids in this school any more.

“Does your mum know you’ve done that to your uniform?” he asked.

“How else should I be attired?” the boy replied. “’Tis the custom at Court.”

“The only court you’ll ever see the inside of, Westlake, will have a judge in it.”

Five children laughed. The others continued staring blankly at the teacher.

“The Ismus is the only judge,” Conor answered steadily. Martin was about to say something further when his attention was diverted by Owen Williams. The ginger-haired boy was chewing noisily, his jaw bouncing up and down.

“In the bin,” Martin told him.

“May I not save it for later?” Owen answered politely.

Martin did a double take to make sure it was the right boy. Where had the gangsta rapper disappeared to? Then he realised that the Welsh lad was also wearing a playing card – the three of diamonds. He wondered what the significance was – if there was one.

“No, Owen,” he said firmly. “That goes in the bin right now.”

Normally the boy would have grizzled and protested and shook his hands with attitude, but not that morning.

“As you wish,” he said.

He rose calmly, crossed to the waste bin, sucked sharply on whatever was in his mouth then removed it.

Martin caught a glimpse of something grey and yellowish, as a fibrous gobbet dropped heavily into the bottom of the bin, among the pencil shavings and brown apple core that the cleaners hadn’t bothered to empty last night.

Owen returned to his seat and Martin saw that his lips were stained the same putrid colour as whatever he had been chewing.

It was a relief when Emma Taylor burst into the room, late and mouthy as usual.

“Poxy alarm didn’t go off and my mum was too busy glued to a fat cow talking about cystitis on breakfast telly to notice,” she said, sailing to her usual place at the back.

She rummaged in her bag and, for a change, produced her books. Then she sensed the strange atmosphere in the classroom and peered around her.

“Who died in here then?” she asked tactlessly.

The five unaffected children gasped at the girl’s insensitivity. How could she say such things when her own friends had perished in the Disaster? Martin glared at her. Emma noted that the other children didn’t even blink. On Monday, that ginger minger, Owen, couldn’t sit next to Kevin Stipe’s empty seat. Today, looking at the vacant expression on his acne-pocked face, Emma wondered if he could even remember Kevin’s name.

The lesson proceeded. Without her two friends, Emma’s disruptions were limited to moans of how difficult the equations were – or jibes at the “hilarious losers” who had “butchered their blazers”. None of the twenty-two card-wearing pupils responded to her insults, no matter how hard she tried to provoke them. They got on with their work in silence. Martin watched them with concern. It simply wasn’t normal.

At the end of the double period, when Martin was setting the homework, Emma sat slumped, sullen and scowling, sucking the end of her pen as if it was a thin cigar.

“Can’t do this,” she declared floppily. “Don’t understand it.”

“Everyone else is managing,” the teacher replied. “Maybe if you’d listened when I was explaining, you’d be able to.”

“I was!”

“No, you weren’t, you were drawing a beard and glasses on Paris Hilton in your magazine.”

“You was droning on, it didn’t make no sense. You’re a rubbish teacher.”

“Do you really have to be so insolent and rude all the time?”

“Just being honest.”

“No, you’re obnoxious and insulting – there’s a massive difference, Emma.”

“I’m just being me, ain’t I?”

“Why do you think that being you is anything to be proud of? It really isn’t. You’re thick scum. Try and be something better.”

“You can’t talk to me like that!”

“I think you’ll find I can – I’m the teacher.”

“You’ve never taught me anything.”

Martin laughed. “For once we agree,” he said. “In all the years you’ve attended this school, I haven’t taught you a single thing. And that’s why you’re going to fail the exam in the summer and have a totally rubbish life scrounging off the state.”

“Tell me how to do it then.”

“Have you got thirty quid?”

“Eh?”

“That’s how much private tuition costs per hour. I’m not going to waste any more of this lesson repeating myself. If you haven’t got the sense or manners to listen the first time, I’m certainly not going to give up my free time for nothing.”

One or two of the unaffected sniggered at her, but Emma pulled a disinterested face and shrugged it off.

The bell rang. Five children scrambled to leave. The card-wearers stood, almost in unison, and began filing out.

“So do you think it was Daz or Persil, Sir?” Emma asked the teacher abruptly. It was Martin’s turn not to understand. Emma threw her stuff into her bag.

“What they had their brains washed in,” she sniped as she barged by everyone. “I might be thick scum, but I’m not a mindless zombie like these sad cabbages. You, and the rest of this grotty town, need to wake up and smell the cappuccino because this… this ain’t normal. Out of my way, losers.”

Martin knew she had a point. Something was very wrong. He gathered up his books, put them in his briefcase and followed the children out. At the door he paused. Sandra Dixon was still in the room. He was about to call and hurry her along, but what he saw made him catch his breath.

The girl had walked slowly across the room until she was standing next to the waste bin. For a moment she gazed down into it. Then stooping, she reached inside and fished out the thing that Owen had dropped there. It squelched in her fingers and was still glistening with his saliva. Pencil shavings were stuck to it, but that didn’t deter her. Without hesitation, she placed it in her mouth and began to chew, closing her eyes happily.

Martin was too astonished and revolted to say anything. He leaned against the corridor wall and the Dixon girl sauntered past, oblivious to his presence.